◆Nachi◆
“What is this, some kind of monster trap?” Chiulu stared down at the looming pit of spikes—one misstep easily meaning instant death.
“Only if you’re calling all Fiends monsters,” Nachi shook her head. “But that wouldn’t be very politically correct of you, now would it? No, this isn’t a trap, it’s training! Don’t get me wrong, though. While I’m happy to train anyone, since you’re not part of our group, I have no obligation to train you. And even if I did, I doubt you’d stick with the regiment once you left, so it’d just be a waste of both of our time.”
“However, I would like to take advantage of both you and this interesting situation our groups are entangled in to request your help. And remember, you can’t actually refuse. So what I’m asking is that you help me test out the training regiment you see before you. Well, there’s a few more actually, and this is just one part.”
“This pit of spikes is actually designed to be crossed. The task is simple: get to the other side. You see those poles strewn about. Hop from one to the other without falling in. The pucks on top of each pole can really only support one foot at a time, so you’ll have to balance.”
“Uhh, there’s no way I can do that!” Chiulu took another good look at the course and vehemently declined. “It doesn’t even look like it’s possible.”
“No, it’s totally possible—in theory,” Nachi averted her eyes a bit. “According to my extremely precise calculations, it should certainly be possible with the right amount of dexterity and coordination, possibly a bit of luck—at least the first few times through.”
“So have you done it then?” Chiulu questioned, genuinely curious.
“Uhhh, no,” Nachi now how had to fully look away from the woman entirely. “I mean I’ve gotten close a few times. There’s just one jump I can’t nail consistently, but I’m so damn close. Because of this, however, everyone else refuses to even so much as attempt the course until it is proven that it can be done, which is where you come in.”
“Your Curse will always save you from the worst possible outcome, right? In this case, that’d be death or severe maiming. So in order for it to save you, that would mean you’d have to make it across. And well, if you can’t do it, then that will actually prove it to be impossible, and I’ll give up on it and go back to the drawing board.”
“Thanks for your assistance!” Before Chiulu could protest further, Nachi whammed her in the back with the flat of her polearm, sending the woman soaring over the pit. The Bureaucrat landed rather ungracefully onto the head of the first pole, never really catching her balance—wobbling uncontrollably. But the fact that she’d landed it at all was already progress, proving that the first jump could be done. Now she just had to do the rest.
However, the pole she was on wasn’t as cooperative as Chiulu may have first thought. No, it started to lean to one side. Chiulu’s body desperately tried to counterbalance the change, but the pole eventually stopped leaning, and instead clunked like it was caught on something, and the whole pole started to spin around in a circle, with The Bureaucrat scrambling to stay on top of it.
“Ah, I should have mentioned that the poles aren’t firmly rooted,” Nachi added as she stood off to the side, observing calmly with a smirk on her face. They’re actually on a circular track that will tilt and spin, sort of like a joystick. It will never tilt more than a few degrees, so it won’t collapse into the spikes. And the point is to use the momentum of the spin in order to make the next jump. Good luck!”
“Oh, and one last reminder to your Curse,” The Trainer chuckled. “If it sends you back this way, I’m just going to knock you in again. So if it wants to save you, there’s only one route.”
The Bureaucrat had been spinning the entire time that Nachi gave her spiel, and the dizziness was clearly getting to her. Eventually, it caused Chiulu to lose her footing and go soaring once more. Her Curse saved her, though, sending her right to the next pole, and landing her foot squarely.
And then she rode down the tilt until the pole hit the spinning track. This time, instead of rotating endlessly, she jumped—intentionally or not—after just one rotation, right to the next pole. And then that repeated, again and again, until the woman had crossed several more.
“You’re doing really well, Chiulu,” The Trainer praised her. “Maybe we’ll make a warrior out of you yet. But it’s only going to get harder from here.”
The Bureaucrat kept charging through the course with surprisingly precise accuracy and flawless dexterity. However, there was one jump that just didn’t go to plan. It looked like Chiulu was going to short it by a few inches. So reflexively, she shot out her arms to try and save herself.
She was able to grab the head of the pole just barely, and used the momentum of it tilting forward in order to spin around it, and fling her body up on top. Her stomach landed on the pole’s head with a thud, knocking the wind out of her as she gagged from the gut-punch.
“Ah, so that’s how you do that jump,” Nachi started applauding. “Well done. That’s the one I’ve been stuck on. Of course, it wouldn’t be best to land on your stomach. Should aim for a crouch that you can use to lunge to the next pole, but you’ve certainly figured out the pathing. I should mention that I’m filming this by the way, for future study and to serve as proof. Keep going!”
And go she did. No matter how much Chiulu would want to rest, her body would not let her stop until she crossed to the other side. After surpassing the overly difficult jump, the rest was fairly simple. Chiulu made it to the other side without a scratch. And as soon as she landed, her body collapsed, sprawling her out in the dirt as she began to sob—just happy to be back on solid ground, having overcome that torturous ordeal.
“What are you lying around for?” Nachi had come over. “That might be done, but we still have two more to test. Come on!”
◆◆◆
“Welcome to the lava maze of death!” The two women stood in front of a long grid of panels with no actual lava in sight. Each panel looked like rock flooring, but every panel was covered in cracks, making them look like they could break at any second. And the cracks glowed, simulating the lava that lay waiting underneath.
“Umm, is there actual lava?” Chiulu was starting to get worried, especially since she’d just managed to get standing on her own two feet again.
“No, regrettably,” Nachi’s enthusiasm deflated. “I was told the logistics of sourcing and maintaining actual lava would be far too much work and a waste of everyone’s time. However, underneath these panels is what I’d call synthetic lava. It’s basically just goopy water but filled with all kinds of unpleasant chemicals that will merely make you feel like you’re burning alive. With some red coloring and lights added for fun and realism.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call that fun,” The Bureaucrat began scouting possible escape routes, not that she ever believed she could outrun The Trainer.
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“Well this one is basically the same as the previous,” Nachi ignored Chiulu’s obvious reservations and continued. “Make it to the other side. Some of the panels are stable, and others are trap doors. With enough study and instinct, the fake ones should become obvious. But I wouldn’t expect you to have to worry about that. So whenever you’re ready, pick a panel and begin.”
“I guess if I have too,” Chiulu had already resigned herself. She took a look at the first row of panels. They all looked the cosdamned same. Maybe the rate at which the lights glowed was some sort of telling pattern, but it would take her days or weeks to figure it out. So the best she could do in the moment was just trust her instincts and pick whichever one looked the most stable.
The woman boldly made her decision and took a step forward. But it was the wrong choice. Fortunately, she conveniently tripped at the last second, causing her to fall and crash onto the panel next to the one she’d chosen, landing on solid ground. Her legs, however, still hit her original choice, causing the trap door to open, revealing the red-steamy liquid below that would have been her fate.
After getting herself situated again, Chiulu examined the next row of panels. “Well, the next one ahead would have to be solid, right?” Thinking about it for a second, The Bureaucrat patted the panel in front of her with her hand, and it appeared secure. So she took a more assured step forward, only for the trap door to spring right beneath her feet. But the woman’s Curse kicked in, slamming her over to one side of the gap, letting her grab hold of a panel that wouldn’t actually collapse.
“I don’t know why you think there’d be a clear way forward or straight line at any point in this trial. Also, I made sure that the panels were check-proof, in order to prevent any namby-pamby prodding like you just did. They require enough weight and force to trigger—so essentially, an act of commitment. Oh, and if you were curious, I can re-randomize the panels after each run. So if someone fails, they can’t just memorize the pattern.”
Chiulu panted for a while once she made it back up on the panel, catching her breath. But after that, since she realized that any thoughts she had on the way forward were essentially useless, The Bureaucrat decided to discard reason and to just sprint at full speed.
And surprisingly, that tactic worked rather well. Chiulu weaved in and out, picking the panels at random. To her pleasant surprise, almost all of them were correct. And the ones that weren’t, her Curse either lunged her towards another safe one or made it so she could catch herself and recover.
By the end of the gauntlet, the woman had gotten almost all of them right. Perhaps her instincts weren’t as zjik as she thought—she just needed to go forward and not overthink it, and she’d be fine. The ending was a bit ungraceful, however. Chiulu guessed the very last panel wrong, causing her torso to slam full-force into the wall of the finish line, with her feet dangling dangerously close to the unpleasantness beneath her.
Nachi, however, had already moved over to the other side and was kind enough to help the woman up. “Well done, Chiulu,” The Trainer was genuinely impressed. “I mean, you looked like a scrambling baby freer on its legs for the first time, but you’ve done better than many during the testing runs. Come along now, only one left.”
Chiulu didn’t actually hesitate to follow Nachi that time, emboldened by her great success. It was just one more trial and then she was done. Even if she wasn’t good at it, her Curse would save her, right? She lived through hell every day just existing, so how bad could it be? But at that point, she was blissfully unaware of how arduous it’d be to even get to the final test.
◆◆◆
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Nachi stopped their ascent of the tallest mountain near Bisomote just shy of the peak. Chiulu, who was dead on her feet next to The Trainer, collapsed to her knees for a moment to rest. But she did turn her head, appreciating the view. Their hike had been so long that the sun was now setting, only adding to the majesty.
“Did you just bring me up here to see this?” Chiulu’s face was pouring with sweat, making it hard to see, but she wiped it away to get a better look. If the point of this trial was just to reward them at the end with the spectacular sight, maybe it was worth it.
“Huh, no,” Nachi looked confused. “The trial isn’t to climb up here. I guess you can’t see it at the moment, but it’s just on the other side of the peak. Not much farther now.”
Chiulu pulled herself back up to her feet. Hearing that they were almost done gave her the last bit of strength she needed. But this whole experience had certainly convinced her that she needed to workout more. The Bureaucrat had always hesitated, fearing that she’d break gym equipment. But the gap in her skills was obvious, and there was no way she could chase down the most athletic Fiends. At the very least, however, she needed to keep pace with every Lesser in the world.
“Welcome to hell, or rather, Hell Simulation,” Nachi introduced the next trial once they made it to the other side. Chiulu’s eyes widened at what lay before her, a giant hole right next to the mountain’s peak. And when she peered into it, the woman couldn’t even see the bottom.
“I’m sure you’ve heard it, the story of hell,” Nachi tapped into the woman’s memories. “Everyone knows the basics at least, even if they don’t follow Cosmos. The idea is that when a sinner goes to hell, they are placed on the peak of an icy mountain. Its height and perilousness are based on that person’s sins. The more evil they’ve done, the higher up they’ll be.”
“And the only way to free themselves is to climb down the mountain and make it to the bottom. If they fall, they’re sent back to the top to start over—forever and ever until they succeed and have been cleansed of their sins.”
“My goal was to recreate that. But unfortunately, none of the mountains around here were steep enough for my liking. So I asked Kada to make a sheer hole all the way down to the bottom, and then working with Niloy and the science team, we added a synthetic slick so that it would feel icy all year round.”
“The trial is simple, make it to the bottom alive. There are supports and stakes all the way down. Some, however, are designed to break. Like with the lava maze, it’s up to you to use your instinct to determine which ones are safe. There are also handholds formed into the rock, but as I’ve said, they’re very slippery. And just for a bit of added surprise, a few are designed to pivot with too much weight.”
“I will say, for your benefit, that there is a crash mat at the bottom. The fall would certainly still kill a human, but we wouldn’t let them take this trial anyways. For a Fiend, however, if you fell all the way from here, it’d be just enough to keep you alive, but you’d certainly break every bone in your body. Now then, are you going to start, or do I need to push you again?”
“I’ll go,” Chiulu sighed, just wanting it to be over. The woman crawled onto her stomach, letting her legs dangle over the pit. She tested the first support rod available, assuring herself that it wouldn’t break before she added her full weight. Once she had a good grip, the woman slid her entire body into the hole. And then the handle broke immediately. Nachi had never actually specified how much weight was needed to break them, and Chiulu felt foolish for taking anything at face value.
But she didn’t have time to dwell on it. Currently, she was falling in the dead center of the hole and needed to quickly correct that. But she saw a beam coming up, and maneuvered her body towards it. The beam, of course, broke immediately as well, causing her to fall more.
She was closer to the wall now, though, and could reach out for the next handheld. That one broke too. Her body then moved on its own to the next one. But it broke. One after another, every handhold she grabbed, every support she landed on, every beam she crashed into, they were all breakaways.
Assuming Nachi hadn’t been boldly lying to her, what were the odds that every single one she touched would be a dud. What the woman finally noticed, however, was that her speed was decreasing just a bit with each failure. Her Curse wasn’t trying to save her by catching her. No, it was trying to slow her momentum and break her fall.
And it worked astonishingly well. By the time Chiulu made it to the bottom, when the last handheld broke away, it was like almost a pleasant jump down into the crash pad. She still laid collapsed in it for quite a while, her limbs screaming at her from all the strain and grabs, and her body battered and bruised. But she remained in one piece without a single major injury.
The woman continued to lay there and watched as Nachi herself attempted the course now that it had been proven to be completable. But The Trainer had the added benefit of using her polearm to jam into the rocky sides as a handheld where there otherwise wasn’t one, especially since many still hadn’t been reset after Chiulu’s own descent.
But the collapsed woman had to scramble out of the way when the polearm blade came plunging down towards her, which Nachi was using to break her own fall. “Hmm, your time was much better,” The Trainer was disappointed in her results. “I guess you really did find the most efficient way. Thank you for your assistance today. It will make our group that much stronger. I’ll be calling on you the next time I have a new trial to test.”
On the walk back to the compound, Chiulu fiddled with her phone the whole time, trying to figure out how to block Nachi’s number.